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Friday, April 11, 2014

Catching up with Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann has been very busy lately.

NOT usefully or productively busy, NO. Never that. Not resolving her various legal troubles busy, either, not the Congresswoman from Minnesota. She has been more her usual useless, ridiculous, drama queen extremist busy.

Although the latest word on her various ethics and campaign violations scandals are that the campaign manager for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell may be the next victim of that Iowa bribery scandal. From Mother Jones:

An intriguing catfight has been brewing on the right—and it could possibly affect the re-election campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Republican Senate leader. A former aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has asked the Federal Elections Commission to investigate whether Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign violated federal law by bribing an Iowa state senator to win his endorsement. The complaint letter, sent by ex-Bachmanner Peter Waldron, charges that senior members of Paul's campaign—including Jesse Benton, who is now McConnell's campaign manager—were party to the bribe or knew about it. The role of specific Ron Paul aides in the scheme is unclear, but a 2013 Iowa Senate Ethics Committee report cited by Waldron states that the Paul campaign exchanged money to purchase the endorsement.

The controversy concerns the curious actions of a prominent local politician during the 2012 Republican caucuses in the Hawkeye State. Then-GOP state Sen. Kent Sorenson was an influential figure in the social-conservative wing of the state Republican Party, and he had offered his support to Bachmann's presidential effort early in the 2012 campaign. Sorenson and Bachmann were natural allies; both were crusaders against abortion and same-sex marriage. Sorenson served as co-chairman of Bachmann's campaign in Iowa and was a frequent surrogate speaker for her. But less than a week before caucus day, Sorenson made a surprise appearance at a Ron Paul rally in Des Moines, where he shocked Iowa political observers by switching his endorsement to the libertarian candidate.

Bat-sh*t crazy Bachmann made the cover of the New Yoker - right - where the whole country can laugh at her, portrayed as a child, which suits her level of thoughtful opinion on Obamacare. This image is doubly appropriate, since Michele is still making specious and factually inaccurate claims about pharmaceuticals under the ACA. From the Raw Story:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Tuesday worried that President Barack Obama and Democrats could withhold life-saving drugs from Americans because they had mandated “killer drugs” like birth control.
Following Supreme Court arguments over whether companies could practice a religion and deny contraception to employees based on those beliefs, Bachmann and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) took to the House floor to blast the Obama administration for mandating birth control coverage in the first place.

“That is government enforced coercion on religious belief,” Bachmann complained. “And it varies at caprice and whim. That’s one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty for the American people.”

“If you looked at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact,” she continued. “Now, apparently today, the gentlemen was in the chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court justice, in her opinion, they aren’t so much certain anymore.”

“It is not at only the election of the court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat that decides, today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow, what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get life-saving drugs that I need to get?”

Bachmann went on to suggest that “only politically-connected best friends” of President Obama’s administration would receive certain surgical procedures in the future.

(I don't know what rock Michele has been living under, but I know how old she is; birth control has been prevalent in the U.S. her entire life. In that sense, the nation looks the same as it always has - with women happily and safely using contraception, and without that use killing anyone.)

Michele also issued a press release, after the testimony of the CEO of MNsure before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. No one seems to care, including Michele herself, but her knee couldn't help jerking. It was a very jerky think to do, and Michele is nothing, if not a great big jerk on the slightest ACA pretext - facts entirely optional, and absent.

And Michele has been busy with her assorted ill-informed, factually-deficient conspiracy theories.

For example, almost a year ago, she blamed Benghazi on GOD:

I guess she forgot that, because now she is blaming someone else; from congressional hearings on the Benghazi non-scandal -

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) added a new theory to the slew of Benghazi cover-up conspiracies on Wednesday, accusing former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell of taking “the fall" for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with conservative news site World Net Daily.

“She couldn’t have a better person to take the fall for her because Morell was involved in rewriting the talking points and was the No. 2 at CIA," Bachmann told WND, suggesting that Morell was clearing the path for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. "So, he can come in authoritatively [and] say, ‘No, that’s not the story. The story is the fake story we tried to push.'"

Morell testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Wednesday and denied an onslaught of Republican allegations of CIA cover-ups and false messaging after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“We did not deliberately downplay the role of terrorists in the Benghazi attack in our analysis or in the talking points,” Morell said during the hearing. Bachmann, in her interview with WND, claimed that by pointing at “underlings,” Morrell sought to “preserve his status, so, if Hillary becomes the next president, he can safely become the next director of the CIA. That’s what this is all about.”
“Now, it's about preserving the chance for Hillary to get elected. And the only way they can do that is absolve her from any responsibility,” Bachmann added. “And so Morell, who is now in Hillary’s think tank, probably being paid very well, is in cold storage for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to take the fall for Hillary Clinton and clean up any dirt from Obama.”

And then we have her foaming at the mouth with bubbling stupid, about the sign up deadline for Obamacare, and about how we are all equal, including corporations, just not LGBT people, when it comes to health care and insurance. It has to sting even dim Michele that Obamacare has been such a success - all without death panels or the euthanizing of old people. It must especially sting that those sign-ups included significant numbers of the young invincibles:

and

and of course, she couldn't pass up another chance for a false claim of the radical right, in their hate for others, being victims. You know, victims like those white supremacists in the south were bullied, when they had to stay up late and ruin their good white sheets abusing black Americans, or tie all those darned knots in ropes for lynchings, those poor segregationists...or so that seems to be the radical right's perspective on LGBT Americans they want to deny equality of rights.

And of course we have popsie bimbo Michele explaining to World Nut Daily "why God blessed America" (like God told her to run for Prez-i-don't), where she continues to demonstrate her failed grasp of legitimate American history, and her simultaneous failure to grasp that we are not - and NEVER HAVE BEEN - a theocracy, not in any way, shape or form, not by inspiration. We NEVER will be, no matter how ineptly Michele tries to promote revisionist history.

Not only is her revisionist history notion nuts, but so is the apparent definition of bipartisan:

Nope, doesn't look at all bi-partisan to me. Wonder if the president was invited. I notice they have the one token rabbi, sort of, a notorious end of days messianic / Jews for Jesus nut. Because of course, in Bachmann's idea of America, anyone who has a different religion or sexual orientation is not welcome.

Which makes it so ironic that Michele and her ilk can welcome Jews who sell out Judaism to their little tea party gala for George Washington, but she still finds a few moments from anything but serving in Congress to insist that American Jews have sold out Israel.

In a Monday interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Bachmann chastised American Jewish organizations for backing off stronger sanctions against Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Right Wing Watch picked up on the congresswoman's comments Tuesday.

"The Jewish community gave him their votes, their support, their financial support and as recently as last week, 48 Jewish donors who are big contributors to the president wrote a letter to the Democrat senators in the U.S. Senate to tell them to not advance sanctions against Iran," Bachmann told Perkins.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, changed course earlier this month and came out against a Senate vote on additional Iran sanctions.

"This is clearly against Israel’s best interest. What has been shocking has been seeing and observing Jewish organizations who it appears have made it their priority to support the political priority and the political ambitions of the President over the best interests of Israel," Bachmann added. "So in some respects, they sold out Israel."

Seventy percent of Jewish American voters picked President Barack Obama when he ran for reelection in 2012. J Street, a pro-peace lobbying group that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, commissioned a poll that year which found that just 10 percent of Jewish American voters identified Israel as one of their top two voting issue priorities.

OR, like hearing wrong messages from God, maybe it makes much, much more sense that Bachmann has everything consistently and totally WRONG - AND hateful. Whatever her reason for being wrong, wrong in the sense of being out of touch with the 21st century and wrong in the meaning of being factually inaccurate, Bachmann is still calling for repeal of Obamacare (yeah - NOT going to happen), calling for the GOP to block immigration change/reform, and generally just making a fool of herself, and a general nuisance.

1 comment:

Nice tribute to Princess Michele on the day her peeps in the 6th District Republican Party are honoring her years of service before moving on tomorrow and beknighting Sir Tom Emmer to carry her mantle forward.

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

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